Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the chairman of the House Weaponization Select Subcommittee, recently wrote a letter to National Intelligence Director Avril Haines expressing concerns regarding allegations that U.S. intelligence agencies obstructed an investigation led by two Republican Senators in 2020 into financial activities involving the Biden family.
The inquiry, initiated by Sens. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) three years ago, was reportedly met with a “defensive” briefing from FBI officials who attributed claims of influence peddling to Russian “disinformation” on August 6, 2020.
The House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee are now investigating these accusations as part of their oversight probe into U.S. intelligence agencies.
According to National Review, Senators Grassley and Johnson were nearing the conclusion of their September 2020 report, which delved into the alleged influence-peddling activities of Hunter Biden in China and Ukraine.
Representative Jordan has requested that Haines provide “all drafts of the script” used to brief the two senators, seeking information on this “so-called ‘defensive’ briefing”, as reported by the outlet.
“The Senators’ investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial connections to foreign governments and foreign nationals was hampered by the briefing, the existence of which was later leaked,” Jordan noted in his letter.
In a letter addressed to Nikki Floris, the then-Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, and Bradley Benavides, the then-Section Chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force, Grassley and Johnson clarified that the Russian disinformation briefing by the two FBI officials “consisted primarily of information that [the Senators] already knew and information unconnected to [their] Biden investigation.”
In August 2022, the two senators wrote: “The unnecessary FBI briefing provided the Democrats and liberal media with the vehicle to spread their false narrative that our work advanced Russian disinformation. Even though you claimed that the FBI didn’t intend to ‘interfere’ with our investigation, the practical effects of such an unnecessary briefing and the subsequent leaks related to it frustrated and obstructed congressional oversight efforts.”
In response to the New York Post’s publication of evidence that appeared to suggest influence peddling by the Biden family on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, 51 current and former intelligence officials issued an open letter emphasizing that the device was likely a product of Russian disinformation.
This week, Representative Jim Jordan declared that the House Judiciary Committee has begun examining allegations that the Department of Justice conducted surveillance on congressional representatives and their personnel.
“We now know that they spied on congressional staffers,” Jordan said in an appearance on Fox Business’s “The Evening Edit” with Elizabeth MacDonald. “We want to know, how far does it go? Were they spying on members? Were they spying on other staffers? Keep this in mind, Liz: We know they spied on President Trump’s campaign. We know all that from the FISA Court and what they did with Carter Page and Papadopoulos—everything else. Now we’ve learned that they spied on one of Sen. Grassley’s staff members, Jason Foster.”
“We want to know, does it go further?” he stressed. “So we’ve sent letters not only to the Department of Justice but to all these carriers that the Department of Justice worked with to get the phone records and the email records from congressional staffers like Mr. Foster. How far does this go? Were they spying on members and other staff?”
Jordan wrote to Alphabet, Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s CEOs, as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting information about the DOJ’s alleged attempts to obtain the private communications of members of Congress and their staff as part of the investigation.
“The Justice Department’s efforts to obtain the private communications of congressional staffers, including staffers conducting oversight of the Department, are wholly unacceptable and offend fundamental separation of powers principles as well as Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of the Department,” the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook read.
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